A Heart So Big
by EachPeachPearPlum
Summary: As long as he has known her, she has been his world. And now it has ended. (Or, Rory, in the minutes immediately after the Angel)


**Notes: **So in preparation for the return, the Beeb has repeated all of the first half of seven recently, which means I've spent a fair few evenings recently watching it on iplayer. In a fit of extreme masochism, I've been watching _Angels_ again and again, because I adore it, as much as it breaks my heart. But the thing is this. On Ao3 a while ago, I read a fic (not _Who_, something else) in which one of the characters, whilst talking about this episode, suggested that maybe Amy never actually found Rory again. The Angel sent her somewhere else, they both lived unhappy and alone, and the gravestone and the afterword were just her doing what River said, not letting The Doctor see the damage. Understandably, this caused me a great deal of _angst_. So I suppose this is me trying to fix it, and myself. Title from _Hear You Me_, by Jimmy Eat World.

**A Heart So Big**

The graveyard hasn't changed.

How stupid that that should be his first thought.

Eighty years or eight minutes ago or possibly yesterday, he thinks, he was leaping off Winter Quay with her in his arms, dying twice in the space of an hour to spare himself a life without her.

He could have lived out all of his days in that dingy, dreadful room, if only she'd been with him. He died, killed them both, _to save you, I could do anything_, in order to avoid it, could have blown Manhattan from the face of the planet, the Doctor said, just so he didn't have to be without her, and here he is anyway, a graveyard in New York, 1938, alone.

Just a moment ago, and seventy-four years in the future, he was looking at a gravestone with his name on it. _Come see this_, he said to his wife, their daughter, and their twelve-hundred-year-old son-in-law. _There's a grave here for someone with the same name as me. _He didn't think anything of it. Of all the things they've seen, a bloke with the same name as him is interesting but hardly world changing. He just thought they'd like to have a look.

_In loving memory, Rory Arthur Williams_

And now he's staring at the exact same patch of ground, only without the large stone with his name, _his_ name, on it.

And she isn't with him.

He knows now why she fears them so much. All the monsters they've seen and fought, they are by far the kindest. Unkillable, maybe, except possibly by being blasted into pieces, and so sinisterly beautiful, but ultimately kind, he'd always thought. They do not kill you in a bolt of light and agony like the Daleks, suck you dry or throw you to the fish like the vampires, rip you to shreds with teeth and claws, drive you mad with fear, poison you, suck your soul from your body.

The Angels don't kill you at all, and that is worse than anything.

Rory would rather die in the most painless way imaginable than this, than live without her, not even the promise of one last sight of her. Not even the promise that as he dies, she will be holding his hand.

She will be safe, he knows, and that is almost a comfort to him. The Doctor will care for her as she ages, their daughter will care for her, she will live a full life without him beside her, running with the Doctor, running until she is so old she has to stop. With him by her side, Amy will be safer than anything.

Maybe one day she'll even be happy.

He won't.

_What've we got?_ the Doctor asked, scared and doubtful and for the first time confronted with a problem he truly didn't think they could solve, fixed points and impossibilities and seeing his friend die before his eyes.

_I won't let them take him_, Amy said, her hand in his, strong and permanent, and running forever seemed so easy when he knew she would be with him. _That's what we've got_.

Pity the Angels didn't get the message.

He doesn't want the last thing he saw of her to be that moment, the confusion-turned-terror on her face.

He should never have gone back. Just a glance, from the corner of his eye, a glimpse of something that caught his attention without knowing why, and he had to backtrack. Three steps away from the TARDIS as Amy and River and the Doctor went back inside, ready to be on their way: things to do, places to go, the universe to see, a decent pub to find. Three steps, unforgivable curiosity, a cold stone fingertip on his back, and he is in hell, no one to blame but himself.

They can't come for him. Another trip to this time and place could end the universe, and as little as he wants to be without her, he cannot even wish for them to save him.

This is it, he realises, sitting down on the muddy grass, still wet from the rain that fell last night, the same grass that will one day cover his bones. This is the end.

"Goodbye, Amy," he says to nothing, to no one, and if only he could have said it to her, died in that bed holding her hand. How bleak that fate looked when he was running from it, how wonderful it looks now, compared to this.

"Really, _husband_," Amy's voice says from behind him, shaky with grief and delight. "Didn't you listen when I said they couldn't have you?"

Rory twists to look at her, suddenly conscious of the water seeping through the seat of his trousers to his skin, the bitterly cold wind, the unforgiving brightness of the sun. He twists to look at her, staring up into her eyes, red hair and pale skin and love.

It feels like his heart is going to burst.


End file.
